"Anything o' value over 'ere?" Grargath asks her as he approaches.
Cira looks at the dwarf and taps the glass with a finger. "Hunclay certainly thought so," she says, smiling.
"Summoning magic? That can be a dangerous pastime."
She nods in agreement. "Astronomy and extraplanar summoning. Definitely doesn't sound like an innocent combination, especially knowing what we know about him."
Turning from the bookcase, she follows Marcus into the next room.
The room that Marcus peaks in to is a lavish master bedroom. Three armoires and three tall wardrobes line the walls. A canopied bed sits against the opposite wall with a large chest at its feet. A writing desk paired with a velvet-lined chair, an elaborate marble tub, and thick bearskin rug complete this picture of luxury.
The entire room radiates with moderate conjuration magic.
"Be careful," Marcus mutters, "this... whole room is magic. Don't see any traps off hand though..." he contimues mumbling as he wanders the room, carefully observing.
He starts with the writing desk.
When Marcus steps into the bedroom, a deep growl rumbles from the direction of the bearskin rug.
Cira follows Marcus into the room but stops short at the sound of growling. Her heartbeat quickens as she looks around, searching for the source of the noise.
"Everyone else heard that... right?" Her voice is hushed, her breathing shallow and quiet as she scans the room again. "It came from... that direction," she says unhelpfully, motioning towards the general area of the wardrobes and rug.
Matcus glasres about the room as he hears the fierce growl.
"Did... the rug just growl at us? That sounded like a bear."
Looking about the room, he continues "Well, I don't see anywhere a bear can hide. Maybe its just to scare theieves, but I doubt it. Everyone be on guard
"
He continues poking about the room.
"This seems to be the kind of place we'd find a master key for the other rooms. Or so I hope."
The writing desk is mostly clean and organized, bearing the trappings one would usually find in such a place: pen and ink, a sheaf of parchment.
A golden ring set with a fat black pearl sits atop one sheet covered in bawdy limericks. Closer inspection reveals that the page, not the ring, emanates a faint transmutation aura.
Grargath enters the room cautiously, uncomfortable with the amount of magic permeating the air around them.
"Did... the rug just growl at us? That sounded like a bear."
Grargath watches the rug with dread, and places his hand on the hilt of his axe. Just in case. "I'm not goin' near tha' thing." Sidestepping the rug the best he can, Grargath moves to inspect the chest, careful not to touch anything.
Marcus looks at the paper, frowning as to why a sheet of paper would radiate such magic, he carefully brushes the mundane ring off the sheet to get a better look while saying, "Cira, can you read magics? This sheet seems very suspicious."
Immediately after Marcus moves the ring, the rug begins to swell and expand. In seconds, a fully-grown bear with glowing red eye appears where the rug sat. The beast rises to its full height, revealing patches of fur replaced by scaly hide, and releases a deafening roar.
Marcus gulps as the bear rug comes to life.
"Uh, well that explains the aura of conjuration, sorry guys."
He says as he draws hos whip and launches into a song about a plucky group of heroes who manage to slay and entire forest of strange unnatual creatures.
"Cira, can you read magics? This sheet seems very suspicious."
"I can. Let me see what—"
Cira breaks off with a squeak of surprise, twisting towards the noise and jumping back towards the desk as the former rug expands into a large bear unlike anything she'd ever seen.
Instinctively, she whips her hand towards the creature, sending white hot bolts of energy hurtling at it.
The bear shrugs off the glancing blow from Francis and drops to all fours, batting at the cleric with enormous paws. Francis deflects the first swing with his shield, but misses a second. The bear's claws rip into the cleric's right arm, leaving a jagged wound. Seeing blood, the bear surges forward and snaps its jaws down on Francis's side crushing armor and piercing skin.
"Giant summoned evil bear. If Hunclay wasn't already dead I'd give him a pounding myself." Marcus grumbles as he moves into range of his whip.
Maybe Francis can raise him from the dead so we can kill him again, nah
Cringing at the damage Francis withstands, charging his weapon the bard lashes out with his whip, while continuing his song of courage.
Cira flinches as the bear latches onto Francis' side, its strong jaws piercing through the cleric's armor, before sending two more bolts of energy flying towards the creature.
Grargath gives a shout of surprise as the bear lurches to life, and another as it digs into Francis. Grargath quickly pulls out his axe, then readies his shield as he rushes to the other side of the bear.
Disturbed by the massive creature's resistance to Francis' attack, Grargath swings heavily at the bear's side.
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Francis lets out a curse as his weapon bounces harmlessly off the bear, and then gasps in pain as the creature rips into him. Shaking off the urge to black out, he steps back, reaching up to grip his holy symbol. The shape of the Ankh in his hand brings clarity to his mind and he quickly utters a prayer. "Goddess, give me strength. iechyd llai"
As the words leave his mouth, healing energy flows from his holy symbol into his arm and side, knitting together flesh and bone.
Feeling somewhat bolstered, he cries out to the others "This is no normal bear. Ordinary weapons do not work. Try the silver or cold iron weapons, maybe they work."
The bear swings at Marcus when the bard approaches with his whip, but swings too high. He moves within range and lashes into the beast’s flank, but as Francis predicted, the wound isn’t as deep or long as the blow indicated. Cira and Grargath pile on with spells and hacking blows, but the hellish animal continues to fight.
The bear backs into the corner, clawing defensively at Grargath and Francis. One of the blows catches the dwarf in the head, knocking his helm clear and raking across his temple.
Trying to stay out of the beast's reach, Marcus charges his whip again with arcane magic and snaps it at the beast, all while continuing his song.
Cira instinctively backs up into the desk behind her as she watches the great bear swipe at her companions before sending yet another volley of bolts at the creature.
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Francis watches in dismay as the bear swats Grargath across the head, nearly crushing the dwarf's skull. Stepping over behind the dwarf, Francis grips his holy symbol and begins to pray. "Sarenrae, lend me your healing power!" Francis reaches out with his hand and places his hand upon the dwarf's head. "gwella clwyfau ysgafn!"
With a nod of thanks to Francis, Grargath drops his axe. He moves back toward the beast while retrieving the mithril dagger they had found in the dungeons of the tower, following Francis' advice. He slashes at the bear.
Bear - 34
Cira's spell scores a burnt swathe across the bear's flank, filling the room with a sulfurous odor. The beast's eyes bulge in pain and it lashes out at Grargath in a desperate attempt to reach the sorceress.
Grargath deflects one blow with his shield and dodges another, but the bear snatches the dwarf's leg in its powerful jaws.
Marcus cuts his song () drops his whip and draws his longsword as he approaches the bear.
"Lets see if you like cold iron!" he growls as he lashes out a powerful attack, two handed.
"Grargath, get ready," Cira yells out. "I'm... I'm going to try something."
Cira stares at the dwarf's back as her right hand, held before her, begins to glow. The light coalesces into a floating, glowing green orb, which she then sends gently bobbing through the air and into her friend's body.
And then she waits.
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Francis growls in frustration as the bear takes another swipe at Grargath, cutting back into the wounds he had just healed. He quickly reached back up to grip his holy symbol again, repeating the words he had just uttered, and reached out to grip the dwarf's shoulder. Golden energy flowed into the dwarf, healing him once again.
Grargath feels a strange tingling sensation, uncertain if it's from the rapid blood loss, the just as quick reversal, or the sudden increase in size as he feels Cira's magic flow over him. He grins, grreatly enjoying the new perspective he now has despite the danger they face, and places his newfound might into the thrust of the mithril dagger.
With a groan, the bear collapses, tipping over and thudding into the floor with a bounce that shakes the furniture and wall hangings. Quickly, it dissolves into motes of red light that flicker before vanishing entirely.
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Francis sighs deeply as the fight ends, swaying slightly as the adrenaline rushes out of his body. With a weak smile at the others he says "Draw close and I'll patch our wounds a little bit."
Lifting up his holy symbol he unleashes a wave of holy light that washes over all of them, mending wounds lightly.
Grargath's arm, ready to strike again, falls as the demonic bear does. Panting, Grargath puts away the dagger and slowly retrieves his helm and his axe from the floor, pausing for a moment as he feels Francis' healing magic wash over him.
"Tha's it, I don' care if we find mountains of gold pieces in 'ere, I'm definitely not touchin' anythin'," he mutters, scowling at the space the bear rug used to occupy.
Marcus breathes easy as the bear goes down. He sheathes his sword and gathers his whip up before recasting detect magic and looking around the room.
"Troubling as that was, disabling these traps is our task. This room might have some clues, or keys, to use in the rest of the mansion, I feel we need to search it."
He wanders back to the sheet he was looking at before the bear interrupted.
"Yer right, yer right," the dwarf begrudgingly agrees, and turns his own attention back to the chest. "But let's keep a sharp eye on anymore animal furniture we find."
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"Any wizard who would ensorcel a rug to become a monstrosity like that bears extra care in our searching. Best to be as wary and cautious as possible. Who knows what we will find?"
Francis quickly lifts up his Holy Symbol and with a word and a short mystic pass of his hands, a sliver of power settles into his core, Francis walks over to the nearest wardrobe and carefully examines the outside of it for anything that might be a threat.
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Cira nods in agreement with Francis. "Knowing that anything could be a trap does little to ease my mind." She looks at Grargath. "How's your head? That was quite a blow the bear gave you."
She moves behind Marcus and looks over his shoulder at the sheet of paper from before and waves her hand over it.
A chest at the foot of the bed is locked, although the top drawer of the writing desk produces a ring of keys.
The sheaf of parchment does not react to Cira's spell.
The armoires and wardrobes store rich and fashionable clothing, suitable for a noble.
"Hey, keys! These might be useful." Marcus exclaims as he shakes the keyring while looking around the room.
"Guess we should check this chest first" he says as he walks to.the chest, bending down to study it for traps before hand.
Grargath steps back to allow Marcus to inspect the chest more closely. The dwarf wanders around the room, looking for anything of significant value.
"Bah. I can't get my head around any o' this."
Marcus finds no evidence that the chest is trapped.
"Lets see what we have in here" Marcus says as he tries the keys on the chest and attempts to open it.
Cira frowns when the piece of paper doesn't react to her spell. "Not what I was expecting," she says to herself. She looks over the room as the others search, watching Marcus as he attempts to open the chest. "I still can't even fathom the amount of money in this place."
The chest is filled with trade bars, long ingots of precious metals preferred by banks and merchants for representing large amounts of coin. Made from gold and stamped with the crest of Druma, there are 64 individual bars here, worth 50 gp each.
Marcus whistles as he sees the contents of the chest. "A fortune here, too bad we aren't here to loot the place." he sighs wistfully.
"Well, I guess with these keys we can try that other door, stay well back in case the trap goes off."
After they finish the bedroom, Marcus moves to the other door and tries the keys.
The key unlocks the door, but when it is removed, the keyhole begins to expand rapidly, growing to the size of a mouth opened wide. An ear-blasting scream erupts from the hole, buffeting the bard with crushing sonic waves.
The room beyond is furnished with a pair of long tables of stained oak against the east wall, both cluttered with alchemical supplies. Atop a desk on the west wall are writing implements, ink, sheets of vellum, and several scrolls. A large chest secured with a prominent lock sits just north of the desk.
Grargath, examining the treasure with a clearer value that Marcus uncovered, rushes to the bard's side. "Wha' a terrible scream, are yah alright Marcus?"
"I think we migh' need yer help 'ere, Francis." Once Marcus has been attended to, the dwarf carefully moves into the next room, gravitating toward the desk but being extra careful not to touch anything.
Falling on his butt and taling a moment to clear his head and wiping the blood from his ears, he mutters "I was hoping the key would have disarmed that, guess not."
Gathering his wits, he stalks into the room looking for more dastardly traps, gravitating towards thr chest at the end of the room.